AbstractThis study employed mixed methods, including a survey of 400 households, 21 key informants, and 10 focus groups conducted in January-March 2019, to evaluate the contribution of Volcanoes ...National Park (VNP) conservation to local food security in Rwanda. Data was collected from communities within 0-5 km and 5-10 km park buffers, facilitating distance-based comparisons. Food security status was assessed using the Consolidated Approach to Reporting Indicators of Food Security. Despite government attention to food security, its integration into VNP conservation remains minimal. Shockingly, 71% of local residents experience food insecurity, concentrated within the 0-5 km buffer. Interestingly, while only 38% of households directly benefit from park conservation, 72% of these beneficiaries reside within the 0-5 km zone. This suggests that community conservation and revenue-sharing programs are disproportionately funded at the park’s edge, where human pressure on resources is most significant. These findings highlight the need for policy and strategy amendments, as well as revisions to the park management plan, to effectively integrate food security concerns into VNP conservation efforts. Linking a specified percentage of revenue-sharing funds to participation in relevant food security programs, co-managing land for conservation and community needs, weaving food aid into safety nets for vulnerable groups, prompt wildlife damage payouts for secured livelihoods and fostered coexistence, and skill training and microloans for diversifying income and curbing poaching are crucial for enhancing food security among households around the VNP.
Forests are crucial covering 31% of the Earth’s land surface. Deforestation has caused damage to these forest landscapes limiting their ability to provide ecosystem services like provisioning, ...supporting, regulating, and cultural services. In response to this degradation issue, the concept of forest landscape restoration was introduced in 2000. This review aims to provide comprehensive studies of existing literature on the effect of forest landscape restoration and restoration time on reversing ecosystem service in Ethiopia. The goal is to inform evidence-based decision-making and guide research in this field. The review analyzed 16 studies conducted from 2011 to 2023 that covered aspects of forest landscape restoration. The findings indicated that these restorations had an impact on ecosystem services such as improving soil properties, storing carbon stack, enhancing species diversity, richness, evenness, and regeneration status, and benefiting community livelihood. However, the review found that most of the studies were limited to specific regions, little information on the cultural service, and there were inconsistencies in some research findings. In general, this study provides significant evidence supporting the importance of restoration as a viable strategy to rehabilitate degraded forest landscapes. It also highlights the importance of long-term monitoring and considering ecological conditions for sustainable restoration efforts in regaining ecosystem services.
